COMMENT The water imagery in this stanza evokes the
closing lines of stanza 32, “The Way's a presence in the realm of
men, / As valley streams join rivers, then the ocean, ” and also relates to the neighboring antiwar stanzas, 30 and 31. Stanza 60 addresses internal policy; this one, external affairs. The two stanzas
seem to form a set. Neither is found in the Guodian text.

In this stanza Laozi urges great rulers to find a benign balance in
relation to unequals, both stronger and weaker, rather than pursue
a course of conquest. Gu Li argues that such a position reflects the
late Spring and Autumn political context rather than a middle or
late Warring States context. The stanza fits into a world of hege-

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